Why it
was their desire to keep life in him when only a few hours ago one
of them had tried to kill him was a. question which only the
future could answer. He did not bother himself with that problem
now. The present was altogether too interesting, and there was but
little doubt that other developments equally important were close
at hand. The attitude of both Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain and her
piratical-looking henchman was sufficient evidence of that.
Bateese had threatened to knock his head off, and he could have
sworn that the girl--or woman--had smiled her approbation of the
threat. Yet he held no grudge against Bateese. An odd sort of
liking for the man began to possess him, just as he found himself
powerless to resist an ingrowing admiration for Marie-Anne. The
existence of Black Roger Audemard became with him a sort of
indefinite reality. Black Roger was a long way off. Marie-Anne and
Bateese were very near. He began thinking of her as Marie-Anne. He
liked the name. It was the Boulain part of it that worked in him
with an irritating insistence.
For the first time since the canoe journey had begun, he looked
beyond the darkly glowing head and the slender figure in the bow.
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